Start up of BK forum

Hi,

Before I made up my mind to become a pukka BK I read with great interest the XBKchat site. I also spoke with some XBKs in person. This was a great help to me in my decision to become a BK. I am happy to be part of the organisation, “warts and all” as they say. Before I became a BK I could not post on the ex-BK site, and after I became a BK I was still not allowed to post on that site. I am happy to be able to post here so easily and freely.

I have a question. Is this the only part of the forum I am allowed to post in, as a BK? Anybody wants to chat with me I will be very pleased.

If you are thinking of becoming a BK, if you don’t know what the BKs are, if you are a PBK, ex-BK, or friend, relative or partner of a BK. I am a Brother and my wife is also a pukka BK. We have our own home and neither of us lives in a centre.

We have quite different attitudes to Gyan, which is part of what makes us an ideal couple in our own lives. I am a bit of a Bhagat. My wife is a dot on the wall person. I am very Indian by temperament, my wife wants to try to westernise the way she transmits Gyan. We are both English. We have both had profound transcendental and psychic experiences in meditation. My wife is a very psychic person generally.

I do not have any issues to raise at the moment, as my path appears very clear to me, just a few adjustments to make along the way. I wait for replies, but I am not on the computer much, mainly at weekends, and next weekend I am away on a BK course.

Om Shanti,

PROY

I have just seen a DVD called "What the Bleep?". It is bleeping fantastic.

It has been out for about 3 years but if you have not seen it yet then check it out. It is about Quantum Physics and is very accessible, funny, and spiritual in a universalist way. I just got the book of Bleeps from Amazon and I see they have a web site.

http://www.thebleep.co.uk

Proy.

Hi All,
I am off to Oxford for a while.
Speak to you all again soon.
Love,
Proy.

Hi all,

Well, I don’t know if I should be posting on this BK forum now, but as I started this topic it seems appropriate.My wife and I still see ourselves as BKs, and we will be living the lifestyle and practising the Yoga, but we will no longer be attending morning classes at our centre.

The reason for this is that going to the centre, and dealing with the BKWSU politics, has been making us unhappy. We believe that Yoga should be about being happy, and Baba and the very senior BKs in London are always telling us to be happy, light and easy.

We have given our reasons to the Sisters at our centre, as well as to the Seniors in London, so we are not just disappearing without saying why. If anyone on the forum wants details they are welcome to ask me.
In fact we are still on friendly terms with the centre, and will visit from time to time. Most of you will recognise our story, I have read it so many times on this forum as well as on the old forum, and I do not intend to have a moan about it. I understand others’ need to have a moan, but we have not been in long enough to need it.

So, we do not regard ourselves as having left the BKs, as we were born of Brahma and that will never change, but we are, for the time being at least, leaving the institution of the BKWSU. Our heartfelt thanks and best good wishes go out to those who have set up and helped with the maintenance of this site. Your help and that of the people who post on the site has been invaluable to us. We have not got sucked in so far that we have been damaged by the experience, and we have come away with some good skills in Yoga, good friends, and memories of wonderful experiences.

Thanks again to all those who have ever made a post on this forum, and I hope you are fully aware of the great service you are doing when you share your views and experiences.

Om Shanti and Much Love,

Proy.

We have given our reasons to the Sisters at our centre, as well as to the Seniors in London, so we are not just disappearing without saying why. If anyone on the forum wants details they are welcome to ask me.

Details please

The full details are a work in progress on my word processor and I will publish them as soon as I have completed them. It is a longish story.
In brief I don't like the atmosphere of fear, depression, and control at the centres and get better and steadier Yoga at home.
Also I value my marriage more highly than anything else in life, and I have seen too many Brothers going full-steam into BKism to the detriment of their marriages. I will never do that.
If there are any specific questions you want answered, that I can give a brief reply to, then I will do my best.

The full details are a work in progress on my word processor and I will publish them as soon as I have completed them. It is a longish story...If there are any specific questions you want answered, that I can give a brief reply to, then I will do my best.

I will wait for your story...Actually one thing is I was wondering about your BK marriage - I am guessing that you were married before encountering BKWSU?

Details Part One
Hi All,
As I am a slow typist and have a lot of lokik work on just now I have decided to publish my details about stopping morning class Charles Dickens style, in instalments. This is part one and is about excuses, more to follow.

EXCUSES

“Excuses” is a word I hear a lot from BKs, and is one of the reasons why I feel uncomfortable going to the centres, and so get a better meditation experience at home.

Why? Well, I am a person who never gives excuses because I find they are a very unhelpful way of communicating.

A specific example from every day life is that I do not much like people to stay overnight at my home. If I were to say, for example, “I would love you to stay over night but I don’t have a spare bed”, then I would leave myself open to the other person saying something like, “That’s OK, I can sleep on the floor, or on the sofa, etc., etc.” So rather than try to be polite, and hope they take the hint, I am just completely direct. I just say, “No, you can’t stay overnight at my house.” If they question me why, which they are seldom rude enough to do, I just say, “Because I don’t want people staying overnight at my house, end of discussion.”

To apply this to BK life, I have never said that I want to go to morning classes seven days a week, so I do not expect to be accused of making excuses for not doing so. Yet I am constantly bombarded with Quips such as, “There is no excuse for not going to morning class every day,” or “What is your excuse for not coming to morning class more often”, or “Excuses don’t wash around here.”

As far as I am concerned I have no need to make an excuse for not doing something I have never expressed a desire to do. That would be as if, like in the everyday example, I said, “I would love to come to morning class every day, but…...…Whatever”. I never talk like that.

Consequently the pressure is always on me that I am not doing enough, and that other BKs are dissatisfied with my contribution. I am not talking here about just the Seniors, they all play this “Excuse” card just about every time I go to the centre.

How can I meditate or experience Yoga in such an atmosphere of pressure and unwarranted bullying and browbeating? Well, I can’t, so I meditate at home instead, and have a good Yoga here.

You may ask why I don’t confront the perpetrators of these insults with their behaviour, and explain the effect it has on me. The answer is I try, but they are very skilled at making it difficult for me to do so. One of their tactics is to play the excuse card on me then turn around and walk off in apparent disgust, giving me no opportunity to reply. In my view this behaviour is both abusive and cowardly. I may feel merciful towards a coward, but I will not abide abuse. Therefore I stay away. If I feel, having completed this whole dissertation on the details of why I feel like giving up on the BKWSU, that it will change anything for the better, then I will send the whole document to the Seniors in London.

But maybe I will just give up trying with them and get a life. Maybe I am a Golden Age soul and the Brahmin religion is entering its Copper Age and is of no further use unless it reforms itself vigorously.

Until the next instalment….....Om Shanti.

about your BK marriage - I am guessing that you were married before encountering BKWSU?

You are correct in your guess. I encountered BKWSU just after I was married, unless you count seeing them at a Mind, Body, Spirit Show as an encounter.

Details Part Two –

Misery

Another factor which made me feel like distancing myself from the BKWSU was my experience at the Global Retreat Centre at Oxford.

The retreat programme I went on was excellent, and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the BKs. The speakers were informal, lively, and full of wisdom and humour. The workshop sessions were a joy, illuminating and uplifting. Ten out of ten for the programme.

As soon as we left the work rooms everything changed. The atmosphere created by the resident BKs, and some of the visiting ones, was, with two notable exceptions, abysmal. I do not lay the blame on the individuals concerned, and as I say, two people were wonderful. The atmosphere of misery was all pervading, and must be due to some fault in the way they are living, rather than in any of the BKs themselves. The resident BKs were, except for those two, cold, unfriendly, and miserable. I felt sympathy for them, they seemed so unhappy. Surely living a BK life should make them happy?

One dreadful example was the Sister in charge of serving up the meals in the dining room, who was wearing a huge orange apron. She was bossy, rude, and unpleasant. She created a terrible atmosphere both for her co-workers and for the guests. This must be contrary to all the BK principles regarding the putting of good vibrations into food. If she had displayed a similar attitude in any restaurant or cafeteria in the country she would have been out of a job and on the street within twenty-four hours, and rightly so. Again, I do not blame the individual herself. Who knows what she was going through? But why was she given this job, and why is she not being helped?

What a huge contrast to the way the food is served in Madhuban, with kindness, drishti, and a smile. Are all the big centres like this? If so why? Yoga with Shiva should make us happy. Why are the residents of this important centre miserable?

Until the next instalment…....Om Shanti.

Dear Proy

I hope you don't mind me commenting on your experience.

As a BK I visited GRC many times and know the residents pretty well. There are no very good excuses for the experiences you had and you mentioned you don't blame them (ie the Sister in charge).

Maybe not all members will know of the incredible volume of work undertaken by the residents at GRC. They barely stop - often working late into the night and then up early for Amrit Vela. It is a real shame if they are unhappy. It is a testament to the power of Brahmins that they keep going at all.

You mentioned the poor behaviour of the Sister in Charge. Maybe you're referring to the course leader but assuming you mean the sister in charge of GRC, many will know that is Sister Manda. Again, no real excuses for what happened but she has a tough job and in my experience carries it off extremely well. There are rarely enough "staff" at GRC so perhaps they were just worked fingers to the bone that weekend.

According to a talk Sister Jayanti gave about 2 yrs ago at GRC, everything is on the up heading towards Golden Age. According to PBKs the Brahmin world (both halves) are cracking up - structurally.

I have v. good memories of GRC. I hope your experience was a one off.

Jim

You mentioned the poor behaviour of the Sister in Charge. Maybe you're referring to the course leader but assuming you mean the sister in charge of GRC, many will know that is Sister Manda.

Is Manda a short woman with an impish face who used to do some translation duties during double-foreigner season in Madhuban?? The Manda I remember was an obedient dynamic go-getter who looked like she was meant for mischief. She was one of the SLIPS (Slender London Indian Power Sisters) that circulate in Dadi Janki's wake.

GRC was one of the last retreats I went to. I was having a heart-to-heart with a blond sports trainer from Cologne... I forget his name. We walked around the grounds. Afternoon found us lying on the grass in front as we explored some deeper questions. Both of us were QBKs (questioning BKs) at the time. We were hardly there for five minutes when a sari'd Sister came huffing out to tell us it wasn't deity-like to be lounging like that, and what would the impression be on neighbors driving by, and that if it was up to her, she wouldn't have minded but that Dadi had asked that we move.

In other ways I had a good time there. Dadi Janki was there dropping the jewels and bombs of knowledge, and irradiating us with the drishti of transcendent love. Whatever criticism you may have, the woman was/is tirelessly dedicated to her life's work.

I think that was the last time I saw Chris Balmer. (If someone has a contact for Anthea Church, please let me know... she was one of Chris's friends.) I was quite impressed with an Italian Brother, Giorgio, who was replumbing the place, always had a smile and something humorous to say.

but assuming you mean the sister in charge of GRC, many will know that is Sister Manda

No, I don't mean Sister Manda. Sister Manda was wonderful.

I do not know the name of the Sister I was referring to. I understand what you say about overwork, and I am not blaming anyone, just pointing out that the atmosphere was cold.